你有来过这座城堡吗？凯莉城堡

Ipoh Trip: Kellie's Castle, 凯莉城堡
Kellie's Castle (sometimes also called Kellie's Folly) is located near Batu Gajah, and is about 20 minutes' drive from Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia. The unfinished, ruined mansion, was built by a Scottish planter called William Kellie Smith. According to differing accounts, it was either a gift for his wife or a home for his son.

William Kellie Smith was from a village in Scotland known as Kellas. In 1890, at the age of 20, he arrived in the then undeveloped Malaya. Here, he met an estate owner called Alma Baker, who had won concessions from the state government to clear 360 hectares of forests in Perak. With the substantial profits made from his business venture with Alma Baker, Smith started planting rubber trees and dabbled in the tin mining industry. In time, he became the owner of Kinta Kellas Estate and the Kinta Kellas Tin Dredging Company.

Now with his fortune made, he returned home to marry his Scottish sweetheart, Agnes, and brought her over to Malaysia in 1903. The following year, the couple was blessed with a daughter whom they named Helen. For many years after that, Agnes tried to conceive, but to no avail. William Smith desperately wanted a son and heir to take over his empire in the Malay Isles. After many years, Agnes finally gave birth to a son, Anthony, in 1915. The birth of his child was the start of even greater success for William Smith. To celebrate Anthony's birth, William Smith decided to expand on his mansion. Smith started planning for a huge castle which he planned to call Kellas House, after his hometown in Scotland.

Because of his fascination with the Hindu religion and the Indian culture, Smith's plan was for this house to share similar architecture to those of Madras, with all its bricks and tiles imported from India. He even employed a big group of Indian labourers to build his dream house, to keep the Kellas House authentically Indian. The mansion is accessible from the main road through a bridge running across a stream.

One of the room

But it was not only the cost of importing material and labourers from abroad that made the house so fascinating to locals and travellers alike. Among the many amazing things about Kellie's Castle are an elevator (it was the first in Malaya) which connects right up to the top floor, and the existence of two tunnels that run under the river nearby. One of these tunnels connects to the Hindu temple some distance away from the main house.

Lift Tunnel

On the second floor, Smith planned to build an indoor tennis court — an ambitious project even by today's standards. On the highest floor, there is a rooftop courtyard for parties. This castle was to be the hub for entertaining wealthy colonial planters who had settled in Malaya. His house was so unique that it was even mentioned in the London Financier newspaper on 15 September 1911.

Rooftop

View for Top Floor

The Corridor

Unfortunately for Smith, tragedies struck soon after the construction of the Kellas House began. A virulent strain of the Spanish flu spread from Europe to Asia soon after World War I ended in Europe, killing many of the workers in the Kellas Estate. Another seventy workers constructing Smith's dream castle also became victims of the flu. Smith, who had already spent a fortune on his house, lost a lot of money because of this.

Backyard View

In the end, Kellas House, later known as Kellie's Castle or even Kellie's Folly to some, was never completed. William Kellie Smith himself died of pneumonia during a short trip to Portugal in 1926. His heartbroken wife decided to pack up and return home to Scotland selling the estate and Kellie's Castle to a British company called Harrisons and Crosfield.

Descendants of the Tamil labourers brought over to Malaya to work on the mansion still live nearby even now. Kellie's Castle is now a popular local tourist attraction and was used as a setting in the 1999 film Anna and the King.

This is very special place, I like it very much. Unfortunately, I don't have ultrawide angle lens. Gosh .... must get one soon.

P/S: Article extract from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellie's_Castle

枫找关于这座城堡的资料的时候，进到这部落格。从部落格下载。只为分享。

有去过啊……好象没什么看的哦～

我去过!!我去过!!连自己国家的旅游圣地都没玩完!请不要出国去旅行吧?!支持本地!支持自己的国家!谢谢

没有去过耶
paiseh

那就要去去啦!赶快找地图或是找google map它会帮到你如何去到这个地方!还有别忘记带你的家人/同学/朋友/系友一起去哟!因为那里其实没什么好玩?如果不拍照留念!根本就没东西好玩?年轻的人们去到这城堡肯定会闷到赞同吗?有参观/到过这城堡的游客们?__很多年前，黎明舒琪等人到过这城堡拍电影!对吗?最好在那里来场战争/枪战/捉迷藏/AEIOU/寻宝游戏!对吗对吗?寻找刺激开心!

去过了。。　其实也没什么东西好看的。
不过这座古堡的确很奇特！
我很喜欢这种建筑风格。

去过大概两次了吧。。
那地方的确很美。。

枫这星期日会去噢。
呵呵。。还是第一次去。 所以上网找了些资料。
superguaikakila，呵呵。。你好像有很多想法噢。
但是，大家一定要支持在本地旅游哦。
毕竟外国的月亮不一定是最美的。